


Coming Home

by eagle_eyes



Series: found family bingo fics [3]
Category: Little Women (2019), Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Aromantic Character, Awkward Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, aromantic josephine march
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28837056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eagle_eyes/pseuds/eagle_eyes
Summary: The March family throw a party to celebrate Jo selling her novel, but she doesn't feel much like celebrating. There's still one last loose end she needs to tie up.
Relationships: Theodore Laurence & Josephine March
Series: found family bingo fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899952
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17
Collections: Found Family Bingo





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> written for the "shadows" prompt for found family bingo
> 
> since the 2019 film has an ambiguous ending and this fic is set after the film ends, I think it's worth specifying that I follow the interpretation that Jo never got together with Bhaer and that was made up by her to sell her novel, and this fic is based on that interpretation!
> 
> hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Jo is grateful to her family for throwing her this party, of course she is. It’s very kind of them to want to celebrate her selling her novel and she’s grateful to them for making her feel so supported. It’s just that she’s never been a fan of parties.

Not that this is even a _party_ , really - it’s more of a pleasant gathering of the March family (or the March-Brooke-Laurence family, to be more precise) and a nice dinner together. Which as parties go, is definitely her preferred kind of party, but it’s still not _necessarily_ how she’d choose to spend her evening.

It would be easier if she wasn’t the centre of attention. The whole thing just seems a little extravagant, especially seeing as her book isn’t even technically published yet, and probably won’t be for a year or so. 

Still, she supposes that being surrounded by people does _sort of_ make a nice change. Between all the organisation required to open a school (still a work in progress) and finishing the first draft of her novel after the letter arrived from Mr Dashwood explaining that he’d decided _actually_ the chapters she’d sent showed a great deal of promise and would she _possibly_ be able to send over a finished draft of the book at some point so they could discuss payment, she’s spent most of the past year shut away working in the house Aunt March left her. Her parents and sisters had come to visit often, of course, but as much as she’s mostly enjoying living alone, she has to admit she’s missed this a little. Being surrounded by life and family and merriment.

When they’re almost finished eating, Marmee stands up and raises her glass. “I’d like to propose a toast,” she announces, “To our Jo, for getting her book published and making us all so proud!”

“It’s not _published_ yet,” Jo shakes her head, a perfect mix of shy and exasperated, “I still have to make some changes to the story, and then they need to get an editor to fully proofread it, and then it needs to actually be printed…”

“Of course, but once all that’s done, it’ll be published! You’ll have published a book, Jo, that’s wonderful!”

“I suppose so, assuming I ever get these awful rewrites done,” Jo shrugs, then immediately regrets such a flagrant biting of the hand that feeds her, “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so bitter when they bought the book in the first place, but…”

“Let me guess, the stuffy old businessmen are trying to ruin your vision with their inability to understand artistic value,” Amy nods wisely.

“Mr Dashwood was _very_ adamant about my heroine needing to end the novel with a husband, no matter how much I tried to convince him it wouldn’t make sense.”

Everyone around the table makes sympathetic noises, until Amy chimes in with “Well, maybe that could be a good thing! I mean, I know they always say you should write what you know, but honestly Jo, if you have all your heroines end up like you at a certain point it just becomes crass.”

The others laugh and Jo launches into an impassioned explanation about how the novel’s based on her own life, that’s the _point, Amy_ , but even she can’t keep herself from smiling. She knows it’s a joke, but Amy’s comment means a lot.

There’s been a shift, these past couple of days since she came back from the book deal negotiations in New York. Since she’d practically tackled Marmee and Meg and Amy at the train station and told them that Dashwood bought her book! She’s going to be a real published author! It’s like the others have all finally stopped waiting for her to grow out of her aversion to marriage. It’s accepted now, unspoken but wholeheartedly, that Jo March is going to remain a free spinster for the rest of her life. 

She never realised before, how much she needed that acceptance. Not just from her family, but from herself. She’d always shouted so loudly about how she was going to make her own way in the world to cover up the fact that deep down, some part of her didn’t believe there was really a future for her. But now she’s here, and she’s happy, and she’s made it, and she’s going to grow up to be the family old maid and she can’t _wait_. The future is real, and it is bright. 

For a brief second, she accidentally looks Laurie in the eye across the dinner table, and for that second, it’s like she cracks. All the positivity and joy and life leaks out of her.

Laurie.

He’s the one loose thread. The one missing piece in her life that’s otherwise pretty perfect right now. (No, not the one missing piece. Not even the real missing piece, the one that’s actually missing from her life, not just sitting across the dinner table from her, separated by awkwardness and too much history. But she can just about bear to contemplate how it’s been four years since she properly _talked_ to the man who was once her best friend, and the real missing piece is too much to even think about).

It used to be so easy between them, back when they shared a golden childhood together. And now they’re in the same room, sitting at the same table, and Laurie might as well still be on the other side of the Atlantic. She can’t remember the last time they even had a conversation. They’re part of the same family now (they always were, of course, but now it’s written down in law), and yet they’ve never felt more distant. Every time over the last year that Amy had come to visit, partly just out of sisterly affection and partly out of the knowledge that Jo probably wouldn’t be able to tear herself away from her novel long enough to leave the house unless forced, part of her had hoped that maybe this time Laurie would join them. Maybe this time they would walk through the woods together, like they had for so many years, and things would be so different between them and yet not different at all in all the ways that matter. But Laurie was always busy, apparently, and eventually she’d come to accept that maybe it was for the best if they didn’t see each other. Things are still kind of strange, with the Amy and Laurie getting married of it all.

The only times she’s seen him this past year have been on the few occasions she visited him and Amy at their home, and even then he’s been strange and distant. She’s distant in turn, and the distance hangs thick in the air between them in a way that blindsides her even now.

She should be happy tonight, in the comforting embrace of her family, watching the wonderful thread of her new tomorrow trail out in front of her. But instead she feels trapped, shadows of the past preventing her from quite reaching that beautiful future. Her thoughts return, again and again, to two best friends shouting at each other on a hillside, neither able to offer what the other wants.

\---------------

Dinner ends but the festivities continue. Mr Brooke, it turns out, brought his fiddle in case people wanted music to add to the atmosphere. Well, more accurately, _Meg_ brought the fiddle for him and is now very adamantly insisting that he should “go on and play us something, John! You’re very good and I’m sure everyone would enjoy it!”

Mr Brooke makes a big show of “oh no I couldn’t possibly” but everyone else is on Meg’s side and he has no choice but to acquiesce. They all troop into the drawing room where Mr Laurence’s piano still resides and he begins playing a lively tune. There’s not much space for dancing but they make do, and Jo tries her best to lose herself in the joy of the night. She dances in and out, linking and unlinking arms with her parents and her sisters and even old Mr Laurence, who she’s truly glad to see looking happy. She even briefly dances with Demi after he asks her very politely, and out of the corner of her eye she can see Meg watching them and looking like she’s about to melt.

But after a few minutes the music is too loud and it begins to overwhelm her. Try as she might, she can’t help but think back to another dance, nearly a decade ago now. At the party at the Gardiners’ when her and Laurie had snuck out onto the porch to dance together where no-one could see. Neither of them had really known how to dance, so it had descended into the two of them bumping into each other or just spinning around wildly until they were dizzy, but it had been magical all the same. It’s one of her favourite memories now; she so vividly remembers thinking in the moment how delightful it was, that she had known this boy for not an hour and yet it was already like they’d been friends their whole lives. 

She’d really thought then, that maybe they could be a part of each other forever.

It’s too much, it’s all too much - she can’t be here in this room with Laurie _right there_ telling Father some amusing story. She can’t be here and act like everything’s fine.

“I’m going out for some air, I’ll be back in a few minutes!” she calls to the others as she heads for the door. There’s a chorus of acknowledgement which she takes as her cue to step outside before anyone can offer to join her.

It’s a comfortably warm night, the last remnants of summer still clinging in the air. It’s the kind of night when, once upon a time, she would have stayed out long after dark with her sisters or with Laurie or with all of them. It wouldn’t be for any reason in particular, but they’d spot constellations or, if they were lucky, fireflies, or do any number of the other funny things that amused them when they were young.

She’s almost tempted to just go back to Aunt March’s house (or her house, rather, a fact that she still has yet to get used to), but no. She can’t let these shadows of the past drive her away from her own party. She’s not a girl anymore, small and impulsive, she’s better than that.

Instead she leans against the wall of the house and looks up to the stars. If only people could be more like the stars, she thinks, if only they could be as constant and unchanging. 

It would be so easy to just cry. She could stay out here and cry for all the letters she wrote Laurie while he was in Europe, the ones that he never replied to because he was too busy wallowing in his own heartbreak. Cry for the guilt that ate her up inside because she could never be what he so desperately wanted her to be. Cry for how easy it had been, at her lowest point, to convince herself that she should have said yes to him. Cry for her heart that had broken just a little bit when he told her that he and Amy had got married in Europe, even though she knew deep down that she didn’t want that for herself. Cry for how badly she had wanted to want it, if only so the two of them wouldn’t have to leave each other behind the same way they had left their childhoods.

No, she can’t cry. God knows she’s shed enough tears over Theodore Laurence.

She hears the front door creak open, and who should exit the house but a very sheepish looking Laurie! Jo swallows nervously, pushes her emotions to the side, and tries to extend an olive branch. 

“Teddy? What are you doing out here?”

“I, uh, I needed some air too,” he says. A shockingly blatant lie.

Jo’s mind whirs as she tries to figure out what could have motivated Laurie to come out here and talk to her alone when he’s spent most of the last four years avoiding doing exactly that. Then she looks to the window and her family inside the house, and notices that Amy keeps casting furtive glances out at the two of them, and realises there’s probably a logical conclusion as to what or who sent Laurie out here.

“It’s a nice night,” she shrugs.

“It certainly is.”

Laurie joins her against the wall. A few seconds of deafening silence follow, the muted sound of violin music providing the only respite.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Laurie finally says, “I didn’t get the chance to say it before. But congratulations on the novel. I know how much this must mean to you.”

“Thank you,” Jo nods, smarting slightly from his words. Not because they’re unkind but because he’s right. Of course he knows how much it means to her. They know each other so deeply, after all.

She fidgets, restless, wrapping her fingers together as if to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing his arm, the way she did so many times when she was young that it’s almost second nature now. The distance between them somehow feels even thicker, more tangible.

“I just hope the public like it as much as Dashwood apparently did,” she muses, because she genuinely doesn’t know what else to say. Any topics other than “the novel” and “what a nice night it is” somehow feel too personal. “I didn’t take the offer of upfront payment, so it’s all very dependent on if people actually buy it.”

“Why wouldn’t you take payment upfront?”

“It was a choice between that or keeping the copyright. I figured the copyright would be more profitable in the long term.”

Laurie hums as if in thought, “Well, I don’t know anywhere near as much about the publishing world as you, Jo, but I know how well you can write. I’m sure anything with your name on it will be a great success. I think you made the right choice.”

She can’t stop herself from smiling at that, “Thanks, Teddy.”

“Just giving my honest opinion.”

They lapse back into silence. The same silence that’s the only thing between them these days. It’s killing them both, Jo knows. They can’t keep circling around each other forever, pretending like this is normal. Eventually something’s got to give.

Laurie inhales, about to talk, and Jo interrupts before she can lose her nerve.

“How come you never came to visit me while I was writing?”

Laurie’s mouth snaps shut.

“Jo, I-” he stammers. But she’s worked up now, unable to keep it all from spilling out.

“You asked me - after you and Amy got back from Europe _you_ asked _me_ if we could still be friends and I said yes, of course I said yes, I couldn’t bear the thought of living life without you, Teddy! And I thought, quite reasonably in my opinion, that meant that even though things have become so strange between us you still wanted me in your life too, but I guess I was wrong! I have to _assume_ I was wrong at least, because this year you just disappeared. And I know I’ve been busy with the novel and the school and everything, but everyone else came to visit! Just not you!” she paces in front of him, finally letting herself give in to the anger and hurt. She gestures to the window and the rest of their family, “For god’s sake, Laurie, I’ve seen more of _Mr Brooke_ in the last year than of you!”

She finally forces herself to stop pacing and looks him dead in the eye, “Is - is it not enough for you that I wrote you all those letters while you were in Europe and you didn’t reply _once_? Is this just more of that? You’re still hurt that I rejected you and you want to make me suffer too? Well, _fine_ , it’s worked! Are you happy now?”

Her feelings laid bare, she stands and stares at him defiantly, as if daring him to answer her. She expects to see outrage in his eyes, maybe pity if she’s lucky.

What she’s not expecting is the look of horror and shame written across his face.

“Jo, I - I thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” he says, so quietly and mournfully she has to take a few seconds to process it.

“What?”

“I thought you were avoiding me,” the sheepish look has returned to his face, “Look, Jo, I’m not trying to justify it, I know I’ve made mistakes and I’m sorry, but…” He sighs, mouth moving silently as if he’s trying to find the perfect words, “You shut yourself away this year, and I thought maybe… oh, it sounds so stupid now, but I thought maybe it was because you wanted to avoid me.”

Jo opens her mouth to respond and he quickly preempts her, “I know, I know, that’s so arrogant of me, making it all about myself, but after everything, I thought… I proposed to you and then I ran off and then I came back and told you I’d married Amy and I know I’ve probably put you through a lot of emotional turmoil and I thought - I just thought after everything you didn’t want to see me again.”

He looks at her plaintively, and for the first time Jo suddenly realises that maybe Laurie’s every bit as desperate for them to be friends again as she is.

“That’s ridiculous,” she says softly, trying her hardest to take the anger out of her voice, “What about all the times I came to visit you and Amy? Surely if I was trying to avoid you, I wouldn’t come over to your house.” Laurie just shuffles his feet awkwardly. “And I can’t help but notice,” Jo adds, unable to keep out the accusatory tone entirely, “Even when I came to visit you still acted distant and like you didn’t want to talk to me. What was that about?”

“I guess I assumed that you only wanted to see Amy, and I didn’t want to get in your way. It’s not that big of an assumption; the two of you have grown so much closer in the past year, and we’ve only drifted apart.”

Jo winces, knowing she can’t even deny that.

“Besides,” Laurie continues, “Even you have to admit that the whole situation has been quite strange.”

“You mean because…”

“Because I used to be in love with you and now I’m married to your sister? Yes, I can’t say it’s a position I ever expected to be in.”

There’s a long silence as they both let that sink in. “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head, “I shouldn’t -”

“You’re right.”

Laurie looks up at her in surprise, eyes wide like a startled animal.

“About what? You avoiding me?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant…” Jo speaks rapidly, words blurring into each other as she tries to explain herself as quickly as possible, “Well, it’s not that you’re _right_ exactly, but you’re also not wrong. I...Maybe I have been trying to stay out of your way,” she sees the hurt on his face and quickly clarifies, “But it’s _not_ because I don’t want to see you and it’s _not_ your fault! It’s mine really; I don’t know how to adapt to this. I see you, Teddy, and all I can think is ‘There he is. There’s my best friend.’ And all I want to do is go up and hug you and mess up your hair because I know it annoys you so, and I’m not used to having to check myself because Amy might not like us acting so affectionate like we did when we were younger. Which isn’t Amy’s fault, obviously, or your fault, it’s all on me and I’m so sorry I made you feel like I didn’t want you around, but...do you understand at all?”

Laurie nods, “Yes, I see. I know it’s been difficult sometimes, for all of us.”

Which brings Jo to the second part, the harder part. The part that both of them have been steadfastly avoiding talking about even now. “Anyway, I know you probably wouldn’t want it either. You shouldn’t have to put up with me acting like everything’s still the same between us. Like I didn’t…” She trails off, chokes on her own words as those same shadows that have driven them apart threaten to overpower her again.

“What?”

“You _know_ what, Teddy! Like I didn’t break your heart!” 

His expression is unreadable, and Jo wonders if she’s made an irreparable mistake by reminding him of his failed proposal. Laurie turns his face to the ground and silence passes between them. The muffled sound of applause from inside the house as Mr Brooke begins playing a new piece makes it feel even heavier.

The painful silence lasts just long enough that she’s slightly surprised when he finally speaks. “Jo, I think I owe you another apology,” he’s still looking down at the ground, avoiding the risk of eye contact with her, “I should never have proposed to you. I knew how you felt about marriage, and it was unfair to ask you for something I knew you could never give. I’m sorry, I can’t imagine how that must have hurt you, especially when I abandoned you after you turned me down.”

Jo just looks at him in mute shock. She tries to speak, but she can’t remember how. 

Laurie _knows_. He knows, he understands the hurt that’s been festering inside her ever since that awful conversation they had in the middle of the woods. The hurt that she’s kept to herself all these years because she never believed she was entitled to it. She’d rejected him after all, caused him the worst pain and heartbreak of his life; surely she has no right to be so heartbroken at something her own actions had caused. 

But now Laurie’s here in front of her, apologising for ever putting her in that position in the first place. She’d believe she was dreaming, but this kind of absolution is something she’s never dared to hope for even in her wildest dreams.

“In a way, I should be grateful to you for turning me down,” he continues, a sardonic smile gracing his features, “You were completely right, Jo, we would have made an awful couple, not least because it would have made you unhappy. I should have valued our friendship more and been content, not tried to persuade you into something you never wanted.”

Jo keeps staring at him numbly, not knowing what to do with her hands or her eyes or her thoughts.

“Teddy…” she begins, not even caring when her voice cracks almost immediately, “Do you - do you really mean it? Truly?”

“Of course I do! You were my best friend, Jo, and more than anything in this world I regret that I ruined that!”

“It took two of us to do that,” Jo points out bitterly, all her anger at the world turned inwards, “I have so many regrets too. And I don’t regret turning you down, before you assume anything. But I still wish things could have been different. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person you wanted me to be.”

Laurie looks at her like she told him she was dying, “What? No, don’t say that! All you ever did was be true to yourself, Jo. I’m so sorry I made you feel like that wasn’t enough.”

The words are like a balm to a wound, even if Jo isn’t entirely sure she believes them yet. There’s still so much to say, but for now she decides to accept Laurie’s affirmation. “Still, I think we can agree I could have handled it far better. I’m sorry I ran away to New York.”

“I’m sorry I ran away to Europe.”

They lapse into silence again, but it’s different this time. It’s not wholly comfortable, but at the same time it’s not unpleasant either, and the backdrop of cheerful violin music feels less like a cruel joke at their expense. For the first time since the proposal, it feels like something new is blooming between them. Something bright and beautiful and precious. The shadows that have haunted them are receding at last.

She turns back to her friend and finds him looking at her fondly. 

“You know, Jo, I regret so many things I said that day, but there’s one thing I still stand by,” he says, “When I told you I thought you would find someone, and that you’d live and die for them because that’s just who you are. I realise now that doesn’t mean finding someone to marry, not for you, but I still think I was right. You’ve never loved anyone by half measures. Not your family and not me. That was the problem, you see,” there’s a twinge of sadness in his voice, but no bitterness, “You always loved so much and so deeply, I convinced myself that maybe you’d love me enough to forget the fact you didn’t want to marry.”

“Teddy, I _do_ love you. But not - not that way -”

Laurie’s there before she has a chance to spiral further into her own guilt. He steps forward and clasps her hands in his own, looks her dead in the eye. Jo tries and just about manages to not go into shock at what she only in that moment realises is the first time they’ve touched in a year. “I know, I understand that now,” says Laurie. There’s the same gleam in his eyes that he had the day he proposed, but joyful and sympathetic now instead of desperate, “My mistake was thinking that because your love was so big it had to be romantic. It was childish of me. So I’m sorry if my thoughtlessness made you think you didn’t love me enough, because how could you love me more? You have so much love to give, Jo. It spills out of you; it’s like you can’t help it.”

His piece said, he suddenly seems to realise what he’s doing, and he awkwardly drops Jo’s hands. 

Jo, for her part, is still stuck on “I should never have proposed to you”. The part of her brain that’s still functioning properly notes how amusing it is that if she were anyone else, if _they_ were any other man and woman, that would probably be considered a great insult. As is, she’s a bit too busy trying to figure out when Laurie started sharing her exact opinion on the proposal to be offended.

Despite her confusion, she’s aware enough to recognise that Laurie is being very kind to her, and she stammers out a thank you. “I can’t take too much credit for that,” she adds, too emotionally dazed to keep herself from smiling, “You’re a very easy person to love, Teddy.”

Laurie grins again and turns away from her, embarrassed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

“Thank you. You don’t know how much that…” he sighs, “I really thought I’d messed everything up for good, by taking it so badly when you rejected me even though I _knew_ that proposing would probably end horribly.”

Jo considers that for a moment. “May I ask a mean question? I won’t mind if you’d rather I didn’t.” 

Laurie chuckles, “Go ahead.”

“If you thought it would end badly, why did you propose in the first place? You could have saved the both of us a lot of heartbreak if you’d simply kept your feelings to yourself,” she’s aware that she’s being harsh, cruel even, but she’s also aware she might not have many other opportunities to get these answers.

“I know, and I like to think that if nothing else I had a somewhat noble reason. I thought you didn’t know how I felt, you see, and I wanted to be honest with you. I’m aware it wasn’t the smart decision, but I simply couldn’t stand keeping it to myself, and I really did think you deserved to know.”

It makes altogether too much sense, Jo thinks. Of course it would be so easy for him to believe that she couldn’t possibly know how he felt about her. Otherwise that would mean she knew and just wasn’t acting on it, and she can to some extent understand why he wouldn’t want to consider that option.

Besides, she was always very good at playing dumb.

Jo sighs and wishes it didn’t have to be this hard. “I knew how you felt, Teddy,” she admits softly, “I always knew.”

Neither of them really knows what to say to that.

Jo leans back against the wall of the house again and sighs heavily, memory overcoming her. She’s eighteen again, staring at herself in the tall mirror in the attic. Saying to herself again and again, _“I am in love with him. I am in love with Theodore Laurence”_ , trying to slip into the role of the girl in love like it’s just another part in one of her plays. It’s a prayer to whatever power made her unable to love a man like him the way she should, begging it to finally lift this guilt from her. She repeats it quietly, over and over, the words never falling off her tongue quite right. 

For a moment she lets herself be angry again, not just at Laurie but at the unfairness of it all. For just a moment she lets herself hate him because he got to shout the pain she caused him to the heavens, while she kept all the pain _he_ caused _her_ to herself until it was too much to bear.

From inside the house she hears Mr Brooke finish playing his song, followed by yet more muffled applause. All of a sudden it hits her how tired she is. Tired of all this resentment and heartbreak between them. As the next tune drifts out from inside the house, she makes her decision. Things shouldn’t be like this between them, and so they won’t be. 

Jo pushes herself off the wall, curtseys jokingly, and holds out a hand to her friend. “May I have this dance, Mr Laurence?”

Laurie blinks in surprise. “Jo, I - are you sure? You don’t think Amy would assume…?”

Jo thinks about her sister, how much it hurt her all those years to think that Laurie would always be chasing after Jo when she was the one who was in love with him. She thinks about the past year and the peculiar situation they’ve all had to navigate, her best friend who used to be in love with her now being married to her sister. She thinks about how Laurie’s almost definitely only out here talking to her because Amy told him off and forced him to go bury the hatchet already. And she thinks about the shift, about Amy’s joke to her over dinner, about how it’s become accepted amongst her family that she will live and die a literary spinster, the way she always wanted.

“Amy’s known me long enough to know she has nothing to worry about in that respect. Or at least she should, it’s been twenty-two years after all.” Laurie just smiles hesitantly and she gives him an imploring look, “Come on, my dear boy, for old times’ sake?”

He smiles again, fuller, softer, and puts his hand in hers. “In that case, absolutely, Miss March.”

They head back inside and are greeted with raucous shouts from the rest of the family. Laurie, who apparently doesn’t have _that_ many qualms after all, runs out into the centre of the room, excited like a little boy on Christmas. His excitement is infectious, and Jo grins as she chases after him.

They link hands in that gloriously tactile way Jo has missed so much. The music washes over them, and before Jo even knows it they’re dancing. If you can even really call it that. Honestly, it’s less like any kind of dance and more like one of those strange childhood games: secret personal rituals with no rules, or rules that can’t be understood by anyone except the two friends who share them. 

Once upon a time, when she still had yet to fully understand herself, she had tried to imagine the wedding between them she knew everyone expected. She tried to imagine them dancing a waltz together at the end of the night, gentle and romantic like something out of a storybook. But it had always felt _wrong_ , fractured, like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Maybe that was because the girl in those dreams wasn’t her, merely a creation she could observe from a distance, but maybe it’s also because that couple slow-dancing in the candlelight wasn’t _them_. Maybe they could never be anything other than this. Never be anything other than the way they trip over each others’ feet and the way she spins Laurie before he has a chance to try to spin her and the way it goes awfully wrong and Laurie stumbles into the small table and almost knocks Marmee’s favourite vase to the floor and the way Mr Brooke’s tune keeps getting faster and livelier and they’re not even dancing anymore, just laughing, leaning on each other for support. And how, _how_ could either of them have ever believed this wasn’t enough for them? How could they have ever wanted more than this: childish clumsy joyous thing that it is.

Jo looks up from laughing and sees Amy standing by them, almost doubled over from laughter herself.

“Jo, would you mind awfully if I stole my husband back from you?” she asks through her mirth, a hand on Jo’s shoulder, “ _Someone_ has to try to teach him how to dance like a proper gentleman, after all.” Laurie gasps, mock-offended, but the fondness in Amy’s voice is obvious. 

Jo smiles, stepping back from the couple, and almost trips over a very energetic Demi and Daisy, who have decided this is the perfect time to attack Laurie’s coat-tails.

While Laurie is distracted by the children, Jo quickly mouths a “thank you” at Amy. Amy responds by jerking her head towards Laurie and rolling her eyes in a “What’s he like, eh?” gesture. Jo just about succeeds in muffling her laughter.

Laurie reclaims his coat from the curious hands of Demi and Daisy, and turns to beam at the sisters. He’s _happy_ , and Jo’s happy, and she almost starts laughing because she’s suddenly struck with the absurdity of life. How sometimes everything is so horrid, and all you do is lose and lose and lose until everyone and everything is gone. But sometimes, not often, but sometimes, everything works out so perfectly, and your best friend your brother your twin comes back to you, just when you’d given up hope he ever would. 

Jo leans in and hugs Laurie before she can talk herself out of it. For the briefest moment he freezes, unsure how to respond. But then he relaxes and hugs her back, the same way he has a thousand times before. 

Their hug only lasts a few seconds, but for those few seconds it’s like nothing else matters. Everything else falls away, and it’s just them. Same as they always were, if only for a minute.

It feels like healing. It feels like the first saplings pushing up through the earth after a forest fire. It feels like coming home.


End file.
